Archive for the ‘Alex Toth’ Category

Alex Toth passed away last year at the age of 77. Along with Will Eisner and Jack Kirby, Toth is considered one of the giants of adventure comics. Toth began his career at age 15, creating illustrations for Heroic magazine. He graduated from the High School of Industrial Arts in 1947, and soon was working at DC Comics on The Flash, Green Lantern and The Atom. He left DC in 1952 and was drafted into the Army in 1954.

After his stint in the service, he moved to Los Angeles, where he worked for Dell on the highly regarded Zorro comics. He began working in animation for Dick Brown on Space Angel, and in 1964, he joined Hanna-Barbera as a designer and storyboard artist on Jonny Quest, The Herculoids and Super Friends. His designs for these shows are masterful and imaginative.

The pity is that the actual animation on these shows isn’t even close to being in the same league. Realistic designs like these are very difficult to animate, and require a draftsman of Toth’s calibre to be able to pull off convincingly. But the late 60s was the wrong time for such a challenge. Hanna Barbera was in a mad race with Filmation to see who could put out the cheapest factory-made programming on the tightest schedule. Toth’s imagination and skill were left behind in the dust. Instead of respecting what could have been, Toth’s designs are now taken completely out of context and subjected to ridicule in current TV programs.

Animation Resources supporter, Kent Butterworth brought us a few original Toth drawings to digitize, and I’ve supplemented them with some xeroxes belonging to the family of Carlo Vinci.

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Birth/Death

June 25, 1928, NYC; Died May 27, 2006, Burbank, California

Occupation/Title

American artist/comic book designer

Bio Summary

Alex Toth was an American cartoonist who not only worked in the comic book industry but also designs for many animated series. Initially aspiring to creatye newspaper strips but opted for comic books. Eventually he made the transitions to animated cartoon industry. He participated in production of Hanna-Barbera shows like Super Friends, Birdman, Space Ghost and The Herculoids.

Early Life/Family

Toth was recognized by one of his teachers in his junior high school poster class. Since then, he pursued illustration as a career. At the age of 15, he sold his first artwork. His first job was illustrating for Heroic magazine.

Toth’s contributed to the comic book world by gving us the Golden Age design of DC Super Hero, The Flash. It is this style of drawing that had also proivided many audiendce with the ideal of a super hero physique, as seen with Space Ghost and Birdman.

Influences

Although known for his adaptability, Toth has been compared to Will Eisner and Jack Kirby

Personality

Toth was a very observant outspoken person whose passion made him very critical of the industries he worked in.

Anecdotes

”It could be comics if those who know how to paint also knew how to tell a story! Who knew what pacing was, and didn’t just jam a lot of pretty pictures together into a page, pages, and call it a story, continuity! It ain’t!”- Alex Toth Interview- Comic Book Artist#10- TwoMorows Publishing

Miscellaneous

Alex Toth’s original design for Birdman were later used in Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim’s Primetime show, Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law.

I would like to thank the membership of The International Animated Film Society: ASIFA-Hollywood for sponsoring my efforts to get this project off the ground during its first few years. In particular, I owe a debt of gratitude to ASIFA-Hollywood's president, Antran Manoogian. Without his unwavering support and valuable guidance this project would not exist. -Stephen Worth